Does Writing draw on the wisdom of Uncertainty?

Writing expresses or conceals; it liberates or incarcerates; it is an escape from reality or a dive into the truth. These are the unceasing questions that writing, the constitutive trait of the human mind, stirs up. Philip Roth once described writing as humiliation, a daily humiliation that resembles baseball in which one fails two-thirds time.

For Thomas Mann, a writer is someone who is writing more difficult than it is for other people. Writing is also viewed as resistance, and Milan Kundera believes it draws heavily on the wisdom of Uncertainty. Manjula Narayan dubs it torture; writing spells out the glory and perils of exploring the world where no one possesses the final truth.

It means thinking that draws up the creative process. Postmodernism declares that the Writing writes, not the author, as it is the language that speaks, not the speaker. Much has been expended on Writing and the creative process, and it still touches on poets, authors, and readers alike.

How does one write? Is it a spontaneous or delayed effort that is well-considered? What motivates the author to map existence by exploring human possibilities? A new Urdu literary periodical, “Aur” (volumes 2-3, 2024), poses these questions to several Urdu and Hindi authors and poets from France, India and Pakistan. Tasneef Haider, the editor, inserted intriguing answers and creative outpourings of these authors together in the latest issue. It looks incredible that a French speaker has written three novelettes.